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All sensible people know that vanity is the most devastating,
the most universal, and the most ineradicable of the passions
that afflict the soul of man, and it is only vanity that
makes him deny its power. It is more consuming than love.
With advancing years, mercifully, you can snap your fingers
at the terror and servitude of love, but age cannot free you
from the thraldom of vanity. Time can assuage the pangs of
love, but only death can still the anguish of wounded vanity.
Love is simple and seeks no subterfuge, but vanity cozens you
with a hundred disguises. It is part and parcel to every virtue:
it is the mainspring of courage and the strength of ambition;
it gives constancy to the lover and endurance to the stoic;
it adds fuel to the fire of the artist's desire for fame and is
at once the support and the compensation of the honest man's
integrity; it leers even cynically in the humility of the saint.
You cannot escape it, and should you take pains to guard against
it, it will make use of those very pains to trip you up. You
are defenceless against its onslaught because you know not on
what unprotected side it will attack you. Sincerity cannot
protect you from its snare nor humour from its mockery.
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Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria, est affectus et defectus semper in angaria. Hac in hora sine mora corde pulsum tangite; quod per sortem sternit fortem, mecum omnes plangite! |
Fate is against me in health and virtue, driven on and weighted down, always enslaved. So at this hour without delay pluck the vibrating strings; since Fate strikes down the string man, everyone weep with me! |